Last time I checked I was advised that for personal computers (not servers) it is best to install the 32bit version. I believe the reasoning was that some software isn't compatible with the 64bit version.

That was more than a year ago. Which version should I install and why?

4 Answers
4

If your laptop has more than 3.5GB of RAM installed, you will want to install a 64 bit edition in order to take advantage of the full amount of RAM.

General use of x64 operating systems is becoming more and more widespread. I run a x64 bit version of Linux on my desktop and have no issues. If you install a x64 bit version, however, there are some caveats:

By default, 32 bit applications will fail to run. You must install the ia32-libs package to allow them to run.

Certain browser plugins (notably Flash) are either unavailable or only in beta form for 64-bit browsers. You may find it easier to install the 32 bit version of your preferred browser (along with the above-mentioned ia32-libs package) and use the 32-bit plugins.

On the PC architecture, there is actually a speed benefit from the 64 bit architecture -- not because of the "64 bit" factor, but because they took the opportunity to finally implement more CPU registers.
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Simon RichterDec 16 '11 at 7:40

The main reason it usually comes down to (for home users) is the amount of memory installed on the device. 32-bit CPUs can only access ~3.7GB of RAM, while 64-bits can reach much much higher than that. If your netbook has more than 4GB of RAM (or you plan on installing more memory in the future), I would recommend 64 bit.

In terms of software, there are rare cases where some programs will give you a harder time on 64-bit CPUs. The worst thing you might have to do is install the 32bit libraries and manually link them.

This day and age though, architecture is becoming less and less of an issue.

In most distributions there is a PAE version of the Kernel. This kind of Kernel will let you address up to 64GB RAM with a 32-bit distribution.

You will find problems with some applications not available in 64 bits, like flash. And with other applications you will have to install x64 and i386 libraries duplicating the amount of necessary space.

Another disadvantage of x64 distros is that some applications (like Apache) use more memory than their 32-bit versions.